Opinion
Teaching Profession Opinion

Missing Dillon

By Dennis Danziger — October 23, 2007 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Every August, days before the fall semester begins, I arrive at Palisades High School, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, to prepare for the new semester. I study the quad, which is green, well manicured, and devoid of students.

Two days after Labor Day, that quad will be packed with 2,700 students brimming with hopes, anxieties, expectations.

On that first day of school, I always stand off to the side and wonder what dramas will play out in the coming year. Who’ll get pregnant? Drop out? Come out? Move out? Who’ll end up in rehab or be accepted to Berkeley or Yale or UCLA?

Twenty-seven hundred teenagers from more than 100 ZIP codes. Things happen.

As I study them on the first day of class, I am certain of only one thing: I have no clue what is going to happen to anyone.

On the first day of school, I always stand off to the side and wonder what dramas will play out in the coming year.

In 2005, I taught a class of 36 10th grade English honor students. It was the best class I’d taught in my 14 years of teaching. Probably the best class I’ll ever teach. No matter how badly things went in my other classes, no matter what sadness might have befallen me off campus, I looked forward every day to seeing these three dozen superstars—visual artists, scholar-jocks, stars of the drama department, carriers of multiple Advanced Placement classes.

Some aspired to be writers. Alex, who read the complete works of Mario Puzo during class time, studied screenwriting on his own time. Diana wrote for the school newspaper. Adrina and Hannah, whose heads were always buried in novels that they wouldn’t be assigned until their junior year of college or beyond, wrote essays with the insights of women twice their age.

And then there was Dillon. Our class poet.

He sat on the last row, pen in hand, always writing or sketching or scribbling.

On the first day of class, I tossed out a prompt to see what was rolling around in these kids’ minds.

When I asked who’d like to read what they wrote, paralysis set in.

Then Dillon, this kid with a surfer’s tan and a permanent smile, raised his hand.

“I’ll read,” he said.

“Thanks.” I am always grateful for the first volunteer.

“Mind if I stand?” he asked.

“Go ahead.”

“Mind if I read from your podium?” Dillon asked.

Fourteen years, 2,000-plus students, and no one had ever had the guts to ask to read from my podium.

“Knock yourself out,” I said.

I couldn’t believe there was a 16-year-old on the planet that possessed such confidence. I wasn’t sure if I should be happy to have landed such a student, or wary that he was about to take over my class.

Dillon positioned himself at my podium as if public speaking were his profession.

Then he read.

My first thought was, “He plagiarized this. No 16-year-old is that good.”

Then I realized I had just given him the assignment.

He actually was that good.

When he finished reading, his classmates applauded. That almost never happens.

“Who else wants to read?” I asked.

Silence.

It was as if the main attraction had performed first, and now I was searching for his opening act.

A few brave writers followed.

For 40 weeks, I was blessed with teaching the most wonderfully gifted, confident, intellectually curious, cool, fun, funny, sweet, talented students who ever congregated in my classroom at one time.

And of those, six shyly admitted that one day they’d like to be writers. I believed that all might succeed. But if I had to put my money on just one, I would have chosen Dillon. At 16, he had already discovered his writer’s voice, had been bitten by a love of language, by the need and the obsession to write.

I loved him for his determination, for his yearning to make his mark on the world with his words.

This past July, 1,000 mourners, mostly teenagers, buried Richard Dillon Henry, the victim of a car crash, at Forest Lawn Mortuary in Los Angeles. A man who has worked there for years said that only two other funerals at this site were so well attended: the one for Brandon Tartikoff, the president of NBC, and the one for the journalist Daniel Pearl.

My students and I were devastated. Speechless. Distraught. We still are.

When I returned to Palisades High School this September and looked across the quad, wondering what would become of the young men and women in my classes during the course of the year, I was missing that kid who stood at my podium and read, who would have been a senior this fall, applying to colleges, playing soccer and surfing, and hitting the books to maintain his rank in the top 4 percent of his graduating class.

I’ll miss his joyful presence this year and in the years beyond. And I’ll miss the words that Dillon Henry would have written for us, had he lived a longer life.

A version of this article appeared in the October 24, 2007 edition of Education Week

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Teaching Profession The State of Teaching 'You Don't Know Teacher Tired': Educators Sound Off on Misconceptions
Hear what teachers featured in EdWeek's The State of Teaching Project say makes their jobs more difficult.
Frank Rivera teaches 7th grade ELA at Chaparral Star Academy in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 15, 2023.
Frank Rivera teaches 7th grade ELA at Chaparral Star Academy in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 15, 2023.
Montinique Monroe for Education Week
Teaching Profession Opinion Why I’m Happy Being ‘Just a Teacher’
Not every teacher is an aspiring administrator. That’s a good thing.
Amanda Myers
3 min read
Abstract vector illustration depicting the process of teaching and learning.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
Teaching Profession What the Research Says Do Teachers Really Earn More After Leaving the Classroom? Not Necessarily
Nearly a decade after leaving a big urban district, many teachers have yet to recoup income, a study finds.
4 min read
Illustration of woman and steps made of cash.
Getty
Teaching Profession The State of Teaching Here's What Keeps Teachers on the Job
Hear why these teachers stay in the job, despite its challenges and lower pay.
Fourth graders do a warm up dance at the beginning of Helen Chan's math class at South Loop Elementary School on November 15, 2023, in Chicago.
Fourth graders do a warm-up dance at the beginning of Helen Chan's math class at South Loop Elementary School on Nov. 15, 2023, in Chicago.
Jamie Kelter Davis for Education Week